Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
A gony burned through Sampson as he stumbled into the camp, his captor dragging him in an iron grip. The man clutched his good arm, thank the Lord, but still the jolting seared through his body. Black spots danced around his vision as he struggled to keep up.
At last, the stranger halted, though his hold on Sampson’s arm tightened like a vise.
He struggled to take in enough air to clear his focus. To see where he was.
“What is this?” Jedidiah’s voice blazed with barely concealed fury. “Where did he come from?”
The captor jerked Sampson forward a step. "Found him skulking outside camp. Thought you might like to know it."
“I thought he was dead.” McPharland’s voice held that eerie coldness Sampson had heard too many times.
Sampson strained to focus enough to see the man.
McPharland looked to Jedidiah, and his tone turned almost teasing. “You told me you’d had him killed, did you not?”
“I did.”
Sampson had never heard Jedidiah defensive. Never heard the two men at odds with each other. But Jedidiah looked almost cornered.
And when cornered weasels turned desperate, they usually lashed out.
“Albert!” His roar made Sampson’s captor jump, as well as the guard he called.
Albert and Joe both appeared at the edge of Sampson’s vision. They were the man’s usual henchman and must have been the ones ordered to kill Sampson. The thought fueled the anger in his gut. Jedidiah had actually tried to kill him. Only by God’s mercy was he still alive today.
For now, anyway.
Maybe kept alive to stop him. To stop both of these mole rats.
"You incompetent fools!" Jedidiah snarled at the guards. "I told you to kill him. Finish the job now, here in front of me."
Both men moved to obey.
"Hold on just a minute." McPharland’s voice halted them. He spoke in a smooth drawl. Relaxed and fully in control.
He sauntered over, dark eyes appraising Sampson like a prize horse. "We might still have use for this one. A tool, maybe. Or bait. One never knows."
Jedidiah's face twisted in a sneer. "He's a liability. Best to put him down now."
"Is that any way to treat your son-in-law?" Mick gave Jedidiah a chiding look. He spoke with that same mild tone, yet steel lurked beneath.
Did he disagree with the marriage Jedidiah had forced them into? Probably. There certainly seemed an undercurrent of disagreement between the two of them. Something he’d never heard before.
Usually, they were united in their evil, a fact that made them even more lethal. A rip in the fabric might prove helpful.
Jedidiah's jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing as he met Mick's gaze. For a moment, it seemed he might argue, but then he gave a curt nod. "Fine. Tie him up at the edge of camp. But if he causes any trouble, it's on your head." His voice hummed with barely restrained anger.
Mick just smiled, a cold, calculating curve of his lips. "Of course. I'll take full responsibility."
Joe grabbed Sampson’s left elbow—the broken arm still strapped against his chest.
Sampson bit hard on his lip to keep from howling from the fire blazing through him. He stumbled forward, anything to keep the man from jerking him. Flashes of light exploded in his vision.
At last, he was spun around and pressed down to sit on the ground. His head thunked against the hard bark of a tree behind him. He focused on drawing air in, then forcing the breath back out. Past his aching ribs. More air in. Maybe he should let himself pass out. A blessed oblivion from this torture.
But something inside wouldn’t give in.
As the men cut loose the bindings Dinah had so carefully wrapped around his arm to secure the bone in place, he worked to keep each breath steady.
Mick’s and Jed’s voices drifted to him, filtering through the haze of his breathing. He shifted his focus to hear what they were saying, but they spoke too low to make out. He strained harder, yet the words remained elusive. Were they talking about him? About attacking the ranch? He couldn't tell.
One of the guards wrenched the wrist of his broken arm backward. A blaze of agony exploded inside him. He couldn’t keep in the cry as he jerked forward.
The man spared him nothing as he forced his wrist down to meet the other.
Sampson jerked in breaths, fighting for control of himself. Fighting for relief from the torment. He needed that oblivion. Now.
Even as his body cried out for relief, a thought crept in.
Jericho and Jonah were out there somewhere. They might try to rescue him. They wouldn’t succeed.
They'd be captured too. Or worse. He couldn't let that happen.
He had to find a way out of this mess. On his own. Before someone he loved got hurt.
* * *
T he night pressed in around Grace as she rode, a heavy cloak of darkness broken only by the fleeting glow of stars through the branches overhead. She gripped her reins as her mare picked its way down the steep wooded slope, following the shadowy forms of Two Stones and Sitting Bear. The other two braves rode behind her, hemming her in like a protected child.
She was beyond grateful.
The men had spoken little on this long uncomfortable ride, but Two Stones said they would go first to the camp he’d made to nurse Sampson after he found him so badly beaten. Jericho knew the location of that camp, so he might have also ridden there to begin the search for her father.
A horse nickered in the darkness ahead. Grace's pulse leaped into a gallop. Could it be Jericho and the others, with news of Sampson? Or had they stumbled on her father's camp?
Two Stones held up a hand, signaling the group to halt. He dismounted, then crept forward to investigate.
Grace's breath caught in her throat, her body tense as a drawn bowstring. She strained for any sign of danger, but the night remained still save for the hush of wind through the trees.
Long moments passed before Two Stones returned and motioned them forward. She eased out a breath. That must have been one of the Coulters’ horses.
Had he seen Sampson and his brothers?
She nudged her mare forward behind Sitting Bear’s horse as they descended the final slope and reached level ground.
Tethered at the edge of a small clearing were several horses she recognized—Sampson's big gray, Jonah’s bay, and the paint horse Jericho rode. But no sign of the men themselves.
Two Stones tied his horse near the others, and she moved with the rest of the men to do the same. He stepped close enough that they could all hear his quiet words. “I will go ahead to where I found Sampson. Wait here." He melted into the shadows without a sound.
Grace's hands trembled as she finished tying her reins to the branch. Even with these warm fur-lined gloves Dinah had sent with her, her fingers had numbed hours ago.
After rubbing her mare a few moments, she moved to a place she could better see Two Stones the moment he returned.
The night closed in, thick and oppressive. She fought the urge to pace, to call out, to do anything other than wait in tense silence.
An owl hooted in the distance, the eerie sound sending a shiver down her spine. She'd spent countless nights outside in the wilderness near their home in the valley, but this felt different. Danger crackled in the air like lightning before a storm.
After what felt like an eternity, the crunch of footsteps sounded from the direction Two Stones had gone. Grace straightened, heart in her throat, as a figure materialized from the darkness. Then another.
Jericho and Jonah.
Two Stones followed them, and her chest tightened until she couldn’t breathe.
"Where is he?" The words tore from her, raw and desperate. "Where's Sampson?"
Jericho held up a hand, his face hard in the moonlight. "They found him. Brought him into their camp."
"He's tied to a tree." Jonah's voice burned low and tight. "We’re waiting for the others to fall asleep before we try to get him out."
"How many?" Two Stones asked.
"About thirty," Jericho said. "All armed."
Thirty men. Thirty guns. And Sampson helpless in their midst. Bile rose in her throat as visions of him broken and bleeding flashed through her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the images away. She had to stop this.
Then she forced her eyes open and met Jericho's stare head-on. "I need to talk to my father. I have to try to stop this."
Something flickered in his eyes, a brief flash of empathy. "I understand, Grace. But from everything I've heard about Jedidiah and McPharland, I'm not sure their minds can be changed. At least not without coming up against a hard wall."
She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand, forestalling her. "McPharland is dead set on having our mine. Even if Jedidiah wanted to stop, I don't think he could. Not with McPharland pushing him."
The truth of his words settled like a stone in her gut. Her father had chosen his path long ago, and it led them all to this dark precipice. Changing course now seemed as impossible as changing the direction of a river at spring thaw.
But still, the need to do something, anything, pulsed through her. She couldn't stand here waiting while Sampson's life hung in the balance. "Then what can we do?" The question burst out, tinged with desperation. "How do we get him out?"
Jericho exchanged a grim look with Jonah before glancing around at the other men. "We have a plan. It's risky, but I think it's the only way. With six of us, we can spread out around the camp. Wait until they're all asleep, then take out the guards quietly. Get to Sampson and cut him loose before anyone realizes what's happening."
Grace's pulse hammered. It sounded so dangerous. So much could go wrong. But what choice did they have?
She met Jericho's piercing blue gaze. "What do you need me to do?"
His brows lowered. "Grace, I can't let you anywhere near?—"
"I have to help." Her voice cracked with emotion. "Please. I can't just sit here. Not when Sampson..." She couldn’t finish. The thought of him at her father's mercy made bile rise in her middle.
Jericho sighed, rubbing a hand over his stubbled jaw. "Sampson would have my hide if I let anything happen to you."
"And I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t help him." Grace lifted her chin, holding his stare. Willing him to understand.
A long moment stretched between them.
"I have a job for you." Two Stones’s voice pierced the silence. When she glanced over at him, the way one corner of his mouth tipped up made her heart pick up speed.
“All right.” She gave a firm nod. “Tell me what to do.”